


Ghosts We Kept Within

by joykilldrama



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, Gen, Non-Romantic Main Ship, Not Beta Read, Post-Finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-18
Updated: 2019-07-18
Packaged: 2020-06-30 14:11:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19854835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joykilldrama/pseuds/joykilldrama
Summary: How can you come to terms with death when you know its not permanent? How can you mourn a brother that no one knows is dead? How can you bring back the dead when that's not your power?





	Ghosts We Kept Within

When she first felt the draw of power through the bond, she thought it was because of her. Because she was trying to use telekinesis. She didn’t think anything of the wash of cold that settled over her as the picture of her and Noah exploded. It was drowning in the smug satisfaction that came with knowing that she had done it. That she had managed to use a power that wasn’t her normal power. It wasn’t until fifteen minutes later when the cold feeling hadn’t gone away that she got worried.

She reached for Michael first. He’d been through so much in the past few weeks. She found him easily in her mind, warm but off-center. 

She reached for Max next. There was nothing there. Isobel gasped and closed her eyes, reaching harder and harder but turning up only ice. Only cold. She remembered how Max and Michael had explained it while she’d been in stasis. That Max couldn’t feel her, that it had felt cold like she did now. A frown formed on her face and she tried again. 

Again and again, each time coming up empty and colder. A hollow pit formed in her stomach and tears welled in her eyes. 

Steel. She became steel as she continued to search for her brother, as she searched through the bond and as she pulled at the other bonds she had, each one a string tying her to someone whose mindspace she’d shared.

Finally she found Liz’s. The sadness, the fear, it was overwhelming. It almost knocked her out of the mindspace. Instead, she forced herself further in. Never before had she been able to fully enter without eye contact but now, now there was a sense of urgency she’d never felt before. It was about Max. 

It took less than a minute before she found the image of Max dead, lying on the ground of Noah’s cave. It had to be wrong. Noah was dead and her brother? He was alive. She’d seen him just hours before. He’d dropped her off at her house and she’d gone inside and she’d fought the urge to beg him to stay with her.

Isobel pulled herself from the mindspace. Nausea washed over her and she barely made it to the bathroom before throwing up. Her hands shook and her tears fell freely as she found a bottle of acetone and drank it down, feeling herself grow stronger again. She wanted to dive back into the mindspace, to find something that proved everything false. Instead, she tugged at Michael’s string. She called for him in her mind. She needed a ride. She was still shaking.

Michael arrived at her doorstep fifteen minutes later. The faint smell of alcohol burned her nose. “Are you drunk?” she demanded. 

She believed him when he shook his head. She believed him when he said that he’d had a drink at the Pony. Normally, she would’ve asked questions. The Pony wasn’t open for another few hours. Instead, she climbed into his truck and instructed - no demanded - that he drive to Noah’s cave.

The drive through the desert was quiet. Michael tried to start conversations several times, but she refused. How could he be having conversations? Didn’t he feel the coldness where Max had been or had what he’d said months before been true? He didn’t view Max as family. The bond between them had grown cold months before. Did he not notice a difference or was he doing his Michael thing and ignoring it? 

She didn’t wait for Michael to turn off before she jumped out. Before she took off running towards the cave. For the first time in years, she didn’t care if someone saw her unkempt. If she didn’t look perfect. It was Max and she needed to find her brother. The coldness hadn’t gone away and the image in her mind, the image pulled from Liz, it was still there. Everpresent. Haunting her like a ghost.

“Isobel!”

Michael’s voice called from a distance, trying to get her to stop, to tell him what was going on. She didn’t stop. 

She didn’t stop until a figure stepped in front of her. Long dark hair and a round face and dark eyes. The face of a ghost. The last time Isobel had seen her - no, Isobel didn’t remember the last time she’d seen this face. It hadn’t been her in her last memory. It had been Noah. It had been Noah using her body and suppressing her memory. 

Still, it was enough to stop her dead in her tracks. 

“Rosa?” The name spilled from her lips, a horrified whisper. Was she hallucinating? Did she break something when she was in the mindspace? Had Noah done something to her. It was only when she heard Michael, heard the same name fall from his lips, that she accepted that it was real. She shook her head hard, trying to clear the cobwebs. “Where’s - where’s Max?”

“You killed me” was the only answer that came from the other girl. 

Isobel didn’t have time for this. “Where’s Max? Where’s Liz? Liz will - Liz will tell me where Max is.” She wanted to push past Rosa but she was terrified to touch her. 

“She’s in the cave. With - “ Rosa’s voice was tired, trembling. There was more than just fear and anger in her eyes as she looked at Isobel. “With Max’s body.”

Isobel collapsed into Michael. The ice cold feeling where Max had always been was real. 

Max Evans was dead.

* * * * *

In the first week after Max’s death, people tried to talk to her. Michael came over with coffee that sat until it got cold and he eventually threw it away. Liz came and cried, tried to talk about Max. Isobel said nothing until she left. Kyle came over and just sat with her. He talked about Rosa sometimes, but mainly, he just sat next to her and watched television. Even Alex Manes came over. He stood awkwardly to the side, unsure what to say or do.

Maria didn’t come over. Her mother and father didn’t come over. 

They didn’t know the secret, that Max and Michael and Isobel were not from this world. They did not know that Max Evans was dead. He was out of town, a problem they would deal with when he got back, because of course Max would be back. There was no alternative. 

There was one other absence. It was an absence that burned at Isobel. 

Rosa Ortecho.

Her brother had died to bring her back, and she hadn’t come by. It had been a week and Rosa hadn’t come over to see how Isobel was doing after the death of her brother. Somewhere, a logical voice reminded Isobel that until a week ago, Rosa had been dead. She had a lot to catch up on. It wasn’t as though she could traipse through Roswell, the prodigal daughter returned, looking exactly as she had on the day she’d died. She knew from Kyle that she was being hidden at Alex’s cabin. 

In the second week after Max’s death, something snapped inside of Isobel. 

Max was dead and unless they did something, he would stay that way. They didn’t have another healing alien at their beck and call. Kyle was a good doctor and Liz was an amazing scientist, but they could do nothing about someone who was dead. She called Michael and for two weeks, she tried to heal. She tried and she tried, tried to access that power that Max wielded so excellently, and nothing. 

The most that happened was she caused a block wide blackout that lasted for two hours. Michael had called it a small victory. She’d emphasized the small.

It was three weeks after Max’s death when Rosa finally showed. 

She looked the same as she had at the cave. Her dark eyes were haunted and she looked so young. She had once been older than them all, and now? She was a decade younger. Nineteen for a decade. Dead for a decade. 

Isobel was again reminded of staring at a ghost. Only ghosts weren’t corporeal. Ghosts didn’t cast a shadow on the ground. Ghosts couldn’t knock at the door. 

Ghosts couldn’t take someone’s breath away.

“H-hi,” Isobel stammered. 

You killed me.

It was a whisper in the wind. Was Rosa there for revenge? Was she there to demand answers? Had anyone told her the truth? Surely someone had to have told her to truth, that ten years had passed. Surely someone had told her what they were. 

Rosa didn’t speak as she pushed past Isobel and walked into the house. She didn’t speak until the door was closed and she was sitting on the couch, legs crossed in front of her. “Liz told me what happened.”

Isobel stared at her, not sure what to say. 

“I know you didn’t kill me. That it was - “ She trailed off and Isobel caught the end of the sentence hanging in the air. That it was Noah. That it was Isobel’s husband, long before Isobel had even known him. “You told me what you were, you know. Or well he told me what you were. A few days before he killed me. I didn’t believe you - him. Not at first.”

Isobel still stood there, listening. 

“Your brother brought me back. He did it for Liz. But now we need to find a way to get him back. Because I’m - I’m not supposed to be here. I can’t see any of my friends. Alex told me about my dad, about Maria, about how everyone’s doing but I can’t go see them. Kyle and Liz? They’re trying to take care of me but I’m living in a basement bedroom that Sheriff Valenti set up for me. Except he’s not the Sheriff anymore. He’s dead. And guess what? He was my dad. I guess I’m Rosa Valenti? I don’t know.”

“Why are you telling me all of this?” Isobel was surprised at the coldness in her voice. 

“Because I needed to tell someone and I couldn’t tell Liz or Kyle. They’re too happy to have me back. I can’t tell Alex. He’s got enough shit going on with his dad. I don’t know Michael.”

“You don’t know me either,” Isobel reminded her. Every interaction they had in her memory had been Noah, not her. The few she had were cold and stiff and laden in double meaning. “It's not like we were friends.”

“No, but I know Max.”

Isobel was taken aback by the present tense. “What do you mean, you know Max? Why? Because Liz told you things about him? Because you had a few conversations with him when he was making moon eyes at Liz back in high school?”

“Because the first thing I remember about waking up was seeing his entire life flash before my eyes. Because I can feel him. It’s been three weeks and I can feel him. Liz said it was supposed to go when the handprint did, but it hasn’t. It’s like - I don’t know - like he’s still there.”

Isobel swallowed hard. 

“He’s still here, Isobel. We have to - we have to get him back.”

The frantic tone in Rosa’s voice scared Isobel. “He’s dead,” Isobel insisted. The coldness hadn’t faded. It hadn’t warmed. There was an emptiness where her brother once had been. He wasn’t in the mindspace anymore. “He’s - he’s gone.” She choked on a sob.

“He’s not. You can get him back.”

“You don’t know anything about this! You don’t know anything about Max!”

Isobel swallowed again, trying to rid herself of the persistent lump in her throat. She didn’t want to start sobbing, and she would. She would start sobbing and she’d never stop if Rosa didn’t stop talking about Max. She had spent the last three weeks fighting those tears, fighting with her powers to figure out how to bring her brother back, anything. Anything to feel anything other than the ice cold where once her brother had been. 

“I know that he’s out there and that we’re going to bring him back.”

* * * * *

Two months passed.

Two months of lying about where Max was. Two months of lying about where Noah was. The official story was that Max had left town to travel. The official story was that Noah had disappeared. Their mother got emails from Max. No one heard from Noah. There was no point in keeping him alive. He was never coming back. 

After that first visit, Rosa came by every day. 

Some days, she talked to Isobel about Max, about memories she had from the other man or strange impressions that she thought was Max somehow communicating from beyond. It sounded like crap to Isobel, but she didn’t say it. A part of her wanted it to be true. She wanted it to be true so badly, that her brother was still there, caring for her, watching her, waiting for her to save him the way he’d saved her so many times in their shared life. 

Other days Rosa talked about what it was like living as a ghost. She haunted the cabin. She didn’t get to leave, except to visit people who knew the truth. One day, she’d had to stay in her basement bedroom for hours while Maria came over to talk to Alex about Michael. About why Michael had seemed to choose her one minute and had disappeared the next, why when he’d come back, his aura had grown dark and he’d no longer seemed interested. 

That was, incidentally, the day that Maria joined them in knowing the secret. She’d looked at the table, covering the trapdoor to the basement and asked who was down there. She refused to leave until she had a real answer, marking every change in Alex’s aura until he finally caved. She’d handled it well, better than they thought she would. She was mainly angry that no one had told her, even after she’d been taken over by aliens. 

Maria never came over to visit Isobel. 

Not until two months later. Isobel heard Michael’s truck. He was supposed to come over so they could practice - practice again and again and again until they were strong enough to find a way to save Max without any of them dying. They had already disabused Michael of the idea of trading his life for Max’s. Maria and Alex had both looked like they were going to hit him. 

Kyle and Isobel had hit him. 

Isobel listened to the sound of Michael’s footsteps coming towards the porch, followed by lighter steps. She smiled to herself, familiar with the sounds of that gait. She heard it every day - Rosa. 

Two cars pulled in before Michael even knocked. When Isobel opened the door, she found everyone standing on the other side. Michael and Alex had somehow found themselves standing close together. They always did, even as they insisted nothing was going on between them. Kyle and Rosa stood next to them, Kyle’s head resting on Rosa’s. He was still in his scrubs, bags under his eyes. She remembered him mentioning a late shift and wondered if he’d slept. 

But it was Liz and Maria that drew her eyes. 

It was the light in Liz’s eyes, the way they shone in a way that she’d not seen since Max died. 

Something had changed. 

Isobel knew it to her bones. She ushered everyone inside. Once upon a time, she would’ve played the role of the perfect hostess. She would’ve asked if anyone wanted a drink. She would’ve made sure everyone was comfortable. Now, she waited for everyone to file into the living room on their own. Kyle and Michael went to the kitchen and helped themselves to whatever they wanted. She liked the house better this way, filled with the people who knew the truth and accepted it.

She settled into one of her chairs and wasn’t at all surprised when Rosa perched on the arm of the chair. Everyone else settled around the living room - on couches or on the floor or leaning against the wall in Michael’s case. 

“Is there a reason everyone came over to watch Michael and I practice?” Isobel finally asked, staring at everyone. Staring at Maria and Liz and how they sat together, Liz’s leg bouncing in excitement. 

“We’re bringing him back,” Rosa informed her. “Today.”

“We’re not ready. Michael can barely heal a papercut without throwing up --”

“Hey! It was not a papercut. Valenti had a pretty bad gash!” Michael interjected. 

Isobel rolled her eyes and continued as though she’d not been interrupted by her uncouth brother. “Michael can barely heal a papercut and I was wiped for two days after healing a surface burn last week. We’re not strong enough.”

“You don’t have to be,” Maria spoke up. “He’s bound to Rosa.”

Isobel was surprised by how her heart raced at that. “What does that mean? Exactly.” She had a mental image of a cord connecting Rosa to the pod that stored her brother. She had a mental image of Rosa dead - again - and it being her fault - again.

“It means that his aura is still there. He’s dead but he’s not gone. Liz had an idea --”

“Well if Liz had an idea, by all means,” Isobel snarked. She still didn’t like the sound of the girl sitting on the edge of her chair being bound to a corpse. 

“Don’t be a bitch,” Michael scolded. 

Isobel glared at him and Maria continued. “Liz had an idea to strengthen that bond and to use that to heal Max. To bind his spirit back to his body.”

“Sounds like crap.”

“Sounds like we already tried it. Michael, Alex, and Kyle. Rosa was the test subject and Liz recorded everything and I watched their auras. They - I don’t know how to explain it - they opened up to one another and their auras combined and Michael was able to pull strength from them, from that bond, to heal Rosa.”

“And what was wrong with Rosa?”

There was no mistaking the challenge in her voice, the protective edge to every word. Somehow in the two months since Rosa showed up and started talking about how Max was there, Isobel had begun to care for her. They were friends. Isobel sometimes wondered if it would have been more if Rosa had aged properly, if she wasn’t still barely twenty years old. It didn’t matter. Rosa was too young for Isobel now and Isobel was still healing from all of the crap with Noah. 

“That’s not important,” Rosa told her. “What’s important is that it worked. So we tried a bigger injury - do not look at me like that Izzy - and Michael was able to heal it. So we think - we think if we combine all of us, you and MIchael can bring him back.”

“And what if we can’t? What if we pull him from stasis and it fails? What if it kills me or Michael?” She’d been looking at everyone, but when she spoke again, she looked only at Rosa. “What if it kills you?”

“I’m already dead,” Rosa muttered, her voice barely covering the space between them. 

Isobel shook her head and turned her attention, her fury, at Liz. “Do you understand the risk of what you’re proposing? You just got her back and you want to risk giving her up for a boy?” Even if that boy was her brother. She couldn’t imagine risking Max or Michael for anyone. 

“She’ll be fine,” Liz countered. In that moment, Isobel hated how calm Liz sounded. She hated how hopeful the other woman sounded. She hated every single tone, every syllable, every letter that came from her mouth. “Everyone will be fine. Even Max. He’d do it for any one of us. He already did.”

“And where did that get him LIz? Where did that get him?”

Isobel didn’t wait for an answer. She shook her head again and stormed off. Rosa followed. They sat on the small porch where she’d sat so many times with Noah. “Izzy?” 

“We’re not doing it.”

“We are,” Rosa insisted. “We’ve already decided we’re doing it. We want you there but we will do it without you.”

Isobel turned to face the young woman. Anger burned through her veins, warring with the feelings of betrayal and worry. How could her friends make this decision? Was she the only one of them with a brain? Maybe it was because they couldn’t feel the coldness left from Max. If they could feel it, they’d know the truth. Whatever Rosa felt wasn’t Max. Whatever Maria was seeing in Rosa’s aura wasn’t Max. Max was dead. Max was gone. Some hippie trust circle wasn’t going to bring him back. 

She felt Rosa’s hand slide into hers. “Max saved my life. He saved Liz’s life. We owe it to him.”

“Then we practice harder. We practice until Michael and I can bring him back the old fashioned way.”

“That could take months. That could take years. Eventually, your parents are going to discover the emails are fake. When he doesn’t come home for holidays, birthdays? Then what? Living in limbo sucks. Don’t make everyone else live in limbo because you’re afraid of something that is going to work.”

“How do you know? Where is the guarantee? Michael healed what on you? A small cut? Bringing someone back from the dead takes a lot more than healing a cut.”

“It wasn’t a small cut,” Rosa told her vaguely. There was steel in the woman’s eyes, a fire that Isobel had never seen before. “We can do this. We are doing this. Are you coming with us?”  
It was only the knowledge that this was happening with or without her that had her going inside, that had her getting into Kyle Valenti’s Mustang with Rosa in the backseat, and had her going to the desert. 

Max was exactly the way they’d seen him last. Dead and suspended in Noah’s broken pod. It was the only trace of Noah left. His empty acetone bottles had been replaced by Michael and Isobel’s. His books had been replaced by some of Max’s. A clean outfit sat on a makeshift shelf, where it had sat as a promise that one day Max would wear them again. When they walked in, Isobel walked to the pod, resting her hand against it as though she could somehow touch her brother’s face. 

“So how do we do this?”

“First, we have to get him out,” Liz explained. She withdrew melted silver from one of the shelves and handed it to Michael. “Then Michael will put him in the middle of the cave. Afterwards, you and Michael will sit closest to him. The rest of us will join hands with someone touching each of you. Everyone has to be touching for it to work. When it wasn’t a circuit, with the boys, Michael didn’t get any extra charge.”

Isobel had a lot of questions about that but she didn’t ask them. Instead she watched as Michael pulled her brother from the pod. Her heart stopped beating, seeing him so pale. HIs eyes were closed and his lips pale. It didn’t look like someone sleeping. It looked like a corpse. Again she found doubts rearing their head. 

Max was dead. Seeing him like this, it seemed so final.

She stood still, a deer frozen in the headlights. Around her, everyone moved. Finally, Rosa’s hand touched hers, leading her forward. “You have to touch him,” Rosa told her softly. The idea made her recoil.

It was only the expectant looks of everyone around her that made Isobel touch Max’s cold and lifeless body. He didn’t feel real, a wax mannequin of Max under her fingertips. Across from her, Michael did the same. Isobel noticed that he didn’t use his newly healed hand, but the hand that had never been damaged in the first place. She remembered Michael’s confession that he could still feel the pain and that moving his fingers was still hard sometimes, the secret that he kept from everyone that Max had healed the surface, but not the nerve damage. She wondered if that would be revealed through this bond, if this bond even worked. 

Once their hands were in place, everyone joined them. She looked around and saw how they were standing. Rosa lightly touched Isobel’s shoulder and she was glad that it was Rosa who was touching her, Rosa who she would pull strength from directly. Kyle held onto Rosa’s other hand. His other hand linked with Alex who touched Michael’s shoulder. Maria touched Michael’s other shoulder, the bond between them strong even if their relationship had never gotten off the ground. Liz and Maria held hands and it was Liz who finished the connection to Isobel. 

She had expected something to happen instantly. Nothing did. “Now what?”

The question was directed at Liz and Maria. They had come up with this whole stupid plan. 

“Now we all open up,” Maria answered, her voice trembling. “We let down our guards. Alex said that he could feel what Kyle and Michael were feeling when they formed the link.”

Isobel rolled her eyes and looked at Max. He wouldn’t think this was stupid. He would eat this whole thing up, reveling in the cheesiness. Isobel smiled softly to herself. Then she felt the first flicker. It wasn’t an emotion, not really. It was something different. It felt the way that someone felt in the mindspace, an energy that was uniquely them. She recognized it. 

Liz. 

Of course Liz would be the first to open up. Another flicker, another familiar cord. Maria. Michael and Alex flickered on at the exact same time. She had never known how similar their cords felt. She almost wished she could see what Maria saw. Kyle followed and then Rosa. She could feel the cords tugging at her, begging her to join them, to braid together. 

For the first time in years, she let down her walls. 

It was magic. It was pure magic. She could see colors, radiating from each of her friends. Liz was a deep crimson and Maria a light blue. Kyle’s blue was darker. She almost laughed when she noticed that MIchael’s contribution was a purple shade so pale that it was almost pink. Who knew that her adopted brother would have such a pale colored soul. She would’ve imagined it to be black. Despite the way Alex and Michael felt similar, Alex’s color was a hunter green - so different than Michael’s. It was the vibrant red that pulled her eyes. She’d never seen a color so bright and alive before.

Rosa. 

Amber brushed against the edges of the red, her own color she assumed. All of the colors braided together, encompassing them like something out of a cartoon. 

“Now.” 

It wasn’t spoken out loud. It was in the bond, a vibration that repeated over and over again in the voices of those around her. 

In unison, she and Michael pulled at the cords, at the energy, channelling it into Max. The energy changed immediately, turning a white that was so bright Isobel doubted that she’d be able to see after it was gone. She didn’t know how long her hands rested on her brother, the energy flowing through them all, before she felt heat in a place that had been cold for two months. She watched as a new color joined them - orange, shades darker than her own amber. 

With every passing second, the color grew brighter, the warmth grew hotter. 

Then he opened his eyes. Isobel let out a sob and lurched towards him, the bond breaking instantly. The colors were gone, but her brother was back. “Max!” she called out, wrapping her arms around him. 

Max blinked. “Iz? What - “ His voice was hoarse, but it was music to her ears. She watched his eyes dart around. “Why is everyone looking at me?”

“You were dead!” Isobel sobbed, hitting him in the arm. 

“What are you - I’m not dead.”

“You were. For two months. You were --” Her words were drowned in her own tears, no longer coherent. Her brother’s arms wrapped around her and eventually, others joined them. Michael was the first, then Liz. The others stood awkwardly around the cave until the hug broke and Max realized that he wasn’t wearing anything. 

Clothes were handed to Max and everyone but Liz left the cave. 

“I told you we would bring him back,” Rosa told her as they stood outside the cave, the New Mexico sun beating down on them. “I told you he was still there. He was just - he was lost. Waiting for his spirit to join his body.”

“What about you? Were you waiting while you were dead?”

“I don’t know. I don’t remember being dead. When Max brought me back, I didn’t realize any time had passed. He probably won’t either.”

“LIke when I came out of stasis.”

“Maybe.”

“What will you do now? We brought back Max, but we can’t bring you back. You still can’t go back to your life.”

“Liz thought of that. The person who performed my autopsy doesn’t exist. Kyle told me. Its a fake autopsy and the only official person who ever saw the real one was Jesse Manes. Probably Sheriff Valenti, but he’s dead. I had a closed casket funeral because it was too hard on my dad to see my body.”

Isobel listened. 

“I’m going to cut my hair. It's amazing how different a haircut can make you look. And then - and then Max and I are going to drive back into town. We’ll make up a story about how Max had found me in his travels and the reason it took so long to come back was because he had to convince me to come home. That way everyone can know how he saved me, how he brought me home, how he got to be the hero.”

“You think that’ll work?”

Rosa let out a laugh. “It’s Roswell, Izzy. If they don’t believe it, I’ll just claim I was abducted by aliens and make a million dollars off my memoirs. It's going to be okay. It’s time we all get to move forward with life.”

**Author's Note:**

> Please be kind. This is the first fic I've written in a very long time.


End file.
